Using behavioural insights to improve employee financial resilience - PayCaptain and the Behavioural Insights Team

The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) assisted PayCaptain with the design of their new set of features, SmartPay, within their Payroll app and conducted two rounds of user testing to understand the sentiments of existing and potential users towards the app in helping them achieve financial resilience. [...] There are lessons from SmartPay itself and the findings of this project to benefit both the wider payroll industry and employers in supporting the financial resilience of employees through the payroll process. [...] 4) Replace the need to pay above minimum pension contributions in the rewards tracker goals – BIT’s previous work on payroll savings shows that prize draws increase the uptake of payroll savings.24 However, BIT were concerned that requiring employees to make pension contributions above the minimum would be unachievable for many employees, lessening the incentive of the prize draw. [...] The interviews aimed to answer the following research questions: • What are the participant’s perceptions of the SmartPay prototype and its messaging? • Where in the user journey does the participant face the most difficulties? • Which element or messaging of the prototype / section of the user-journey does the participant find most useful? • What impact does the participant think a particular ele. [...] The future of SmartPay includes enabling it to better serve the needs of employees earning a variable income, for example by allowing users to save a percentage of their income each month instead of a lump sum, along with additional features to support employees building their financial resilience.